The Night Before
by MaxArkem
Summary: Hunger Games Alternate Timeline. The night before the first Games, Katniss lies in her bed, wondering... will she face the horror that awaits her in the Arena? Or will Gale come for her in time? Katniss/Gale


He would come. She knew he would. From the moment she said goodbye, ordered him to keep her family safe, she had known he would never leave her in this place, no matter what he promised. She might have been too blinded to notice before, but the look in his eyes as he'd said her name, one last time, before the train doors closed between them, had been unmistakable.

He loved her. And, Gale being Gale, that love would be no tame admiration, no puppy-dog infatuation. Gale would love her with a passion which would shame a wildfire, with a determination that would take him to the moon and back. She knew Gale could be a maelstrom when he was unleashed. She'd seen a hint of it in his eyes, every time he talked about the Capitol. She'd known it then.

She lay in bed, alone in the gaudy room, her eyes on the ceiling. It was the night before the Games. A part of her, the sane part, the rational part, told her to stop holding on to this madness, stop holding out for Gale to snatch her from the jaws of death. Still, she couldn't shake the certainty that he would make it here. Despite the impossibility. Despite the utter impossibility of such a feat.

She heard Peeta in the hall, hesitate as he passed her room. She thought about him for a moment, remembered the bread in the rain. He was kind, she realized. Too kind for this. The Capitol would chew him up and spit his bones all the way back to District 12. She was the kind of person who could thrive in the arena, she knew. She and Gale would have been the obvious picks, both fit and fighting ready.

Instead, it had gone to the gentle boy with the bread. In a way, Katniss pitied him. In another way, she couldn't think like that. Couldn't afford to pity any of the children who, in the morning, she would be forced to try and kill.

She stared, sleeplessly, at the satin curtains around her huge bed. It would never happen, she knew, because Gale would come for her, to bring her home to her family. As she waited, in the dark, a small part of her knowing it was impossible, another part of her refusing to believe that, she cried.

Sometime after midnight, she finally drifted to sleep. That was why, when the window outside her room swung open, and a dark-clothed figure landed lightly inside, she wasn't awake to notice.

When his warm arms closed around her, she noticed.

"Gale," she murmured, still half asleep. Looking up into his burning eyes, she smiled softly.

"Katnip." His voice was rough. His hands trembled slightly. Slowly she came awake, and, as reason flooded back, her eyes widened.

"Oh god!" She put a hand to his face, afraid to believe it was real. "How did you… how did you do it?"

His eyes were hard, burningly intense. "I snuck onto the train. Killed a guard, stole his uniform. When we arrived in the Capitol they whisked you away, but I managed to figure out where they were keeping you. Then, I staked out the building for two nights, and stole the things I needed to break in." His voice was low, but she could feel the tremble in his body. Despite his impassive tone, she knew what terror the last few days had been for him.

"Oh, Gale." She put a finger to his lips, stroking the soft skin absently. She stared up at his face, still not believing. "I can't… why?"

For answer, he kissed her. His mouth against hers was hard, unrelenting. The tension, and fear, and terror of failure of the last days was channeled in his body, taut and hard against hers. For a second, she was lost against the strength of his passion. Then, in a wave, her own returned.

"Gale!" It was a gasp this time, as she pulled his face to hers, her hands tangling in his hair. She arched her body through the sheets towards him, pressing her breasts against his chest.

His fingers freed her body from the sheets, desperate. She wrapped her legs around his back, pulling him down towards her. Their lips locked, and she breathed in the warmth and smell of him, the sweat and tension and the tang of blood and violence that lingered around the hard lines of his body.

His hands traced her shoulders, her arms, moved slowly along her sides, across the waistband of her pyjama bottoms, leaving trails of warmth cross her stomach. His fingers found the hem of her shirt, and slowly, almost uncertainly, pulled it up, over her breasts, her shoulders. She disengaged from his mouth, and tore it off, letting it slip off the bed to the floor.

His eyes raked her body. The cool air of the room chilled her skin, her nipples tightening, her stomach clenching. She glanced at his face, feeling a little out of depth, a little shocked at the speed of things.

The burning in his eyes was back. It had never left. As he lowered his face to hers again, his hands moving, slowly, to cup her breasts, she melted against him.

He was wearing a black, long-sleeved shirt, and thick pants. There was a knife at his side, she discovered, as her hands roamed across his body. She untucked the shirt from his belt, and undid it, yanking it from the belt loops. His lips moved from her mouth to her jaw, to her neck, across her collarbone. She could feel his teeth against her skin.

Her fingers fumbled at the buttons of his pants, and his mouth moved to her breasts, warming the cold skin. Her nipples were hard, waiting for his lips and tongue and teeth. She gasped a little, her cheeks flushed with anticipation.

She managed to unbutton his pants, despite the sharp pleasure of his mouth against her breasts. She could feel the warmth of him, her fingers brushed against the skin and hair on his stomach, curling around the elastic of his tight underwear.

He seemed short of breath as well. He straightened for a moment, pulled his shirt off in one fluid movement, and kicked off his boots. He tumbled with her across the bed, pulling her on top of him so her breasts hung towards his face, and her hair curtained them both.

She ran a hand across the planes of his chest, feeling the racing beat of his heart through his ribs, and the heat of his need through his skin. She bent her head, and their mouths met again, their tongues dancing together, aggressive, harsh, passionate.

His hands ran down her bare back, and under the waistband of her pants, slipping them down to her thighs. She was wet, she could feel it between her legs, and as his warm hands pulled at her ass, his body pressed against her, she trembled with anticipation.

She tugged at his pants, pulling them down to his knees. He kicked them off the rest of the way, and his socks, leaving his legs bare against the cool sheets. She twisted off of him, pulling her pyjamas the rest of the way off. He sat up, and pulled his underwear off, letting it slip to the ground beside the rest of his clothes.

For a moment, they watched each other, naked together for the first time, caught up in the heat of the moment, but pausing despite the urgency of their desire to appreciate the other's body.

His eyes moved from her plump breasts, the large pink nipples firm and glistening, down to the patch of dark hair between her thighs.

Her gaze followed the planes of his chest, down his sculpted torso to where his cock pulsed, pointed at her, erect and hot. She could smell him from here, the musk of sweat and heat.

They reached for each other at the same time, her hand reaching for his cock, wrapping around the hot, tight skin, tugging and twisting. Their lips locked, and he pulled her legs apart, slipping a finger into her without preamble. She bit his lip, sighing, the feeling of his fingers inside of her a new and indescribable feeling.

His mouth was busy against hers, his other hand tugging at her breast, teasing her nipples, pinching and pulling until they felt like they were burning. In her hand, his cock throbbed, raring at the bit.

He pulled her down on top of him, but she pulled away, eyes locked with his, as she made her way slowly down his body, kissing along his chest, down his stomach, across his hips. He bucked under her hands and lips, his eyes wide.

She slipped him into her mouth, tasting him, feeling the warmth inside her for the first time. Her fingers curled around the base of his cock as she bobbed her head up and down on the tip, her tongue teasing him. He moaned, his hands tangling in her hair, pulling her deeper, further.

She pushed him into her mouth, feeling his cock against her tongue, between her lips, hard and throbbing between her fingers. His thighs were hot on either side of her face, she felt the flush in her cheeks increase.

She pulled back, and kissed down his length, licking up and down him, letting his cock slap against her face. Her fingernails dug into his thighs; she could see his hands clutching at the bedsheets, handfuls of the thin silk twisting in his curved fingers.

She felt a drop roll down her leg; she was dripping now, wetter than she had ever been in her life, carried away entirely by the intensity of the moment and the fierceness of his desire. Pulling away with a gasp, she met his tormented gaze, and framed a plea with her eyes.

He flipped her over, hands on her hips, so he was over her. She could feel the tip of his cock pressed against the wetness, feel him throbbing at the opening. His eyes were dark, his hands kneaded her skin. He glanced at her, as if waiting for permission.

She nodded, wildly, breathlessly, eyes rolling. "Fuck me!" She gasped.

He pushed inside her in a single movement, filling her, stretching her, touching all the places that had never been touched, never felt anything, anything like this, this fullness that was his cock in her, deep in her body. She could feel him, hot and tight, pressing against her from within.

His face was closer to hers now, her body like a doll in his strong hands. She was gasping, fighting to draw a breath. His teeth bit at her neck, the pain mixing and melding with the pleasure into a whirlwind of intense sensation that made her dizzy. The world seemed to spin around the bed as he drove into her, slowly at first, then faster, harder, until the sturdy bed rocked underneath them.

She clenched around his cock as he ploughed into her, faster and faster, his breath coming in short gasps, beads of sweat trickling down his shoulders, across his chest, down to where their bodies met. Her toes curled against his legs.

He was furious, an animal, driving himself against her. The pressure in her core, radiating out from where he had penetrated her, where he had forced himself into her body, built, agonizingly. Katniss thought she would lose her mind from the building tension, until finally, unfathomably, the tension broke in a wave of pleasure that left her gasping, fingers tearing into his skin, legs trembling against his body. She could feel herself clenching around him, spasming inside and out, as she came violently. She bit his shoulder to keep from screaming, tasting sweat. He gasped.

His hands closed around her legs, even as they still trembled. Not yet down from her orgasm, Katniss was only half aware of what happened, as he flipped her around, not even pulling out of her, so she was on her knees in front of him, her ass pressed against his thighs, his cock tight inside her hot, dripping pussy.

His fingers tightened around her breasts, painfully, agonizingly, and he thrust into her again, somehow even faster than before. Katniss fell forward, pulling him on top of her, her arms trembling as they held her weight, her mouth open in a wordless scream. Her breasts burned with pleasure, her legs felt numb and weak. Somehow, as he pressed his hot body against hers, ramming his cock between her legs, she managed to speak, managed to raise one shaking hand and bury it in his damp hair, pulling his lips against her neck, which was already bitten and bruised.

"Gale…" the name was a sigh, and the sigh became a gasp, the gasp turning into another scream as she came _again_ , another jagged wave crashing through her exhausted body. Still he didn't slow, and even as the first wave subsided, another came, as a third orgasm sent her over the edge of her pleasure, crying out his name, no longer thinking or caring about someone hearing them.

This time, finally, as she clenched around his cock for the third time, he came with her, gasping, his hands pawing at her skin, his mouth hot against her ear. He grunted, spasming, filling her with his hot cum. She could feel it burning inside her, but she was blind to everything except the waves of her pleasure, and the feeling of his body against hers.

They sank, slowly, to the bed together, his cock slipping out of her. She trembled against the sheets, her heart pounding, her breath still coming in short gasps. Slowly, she managed to regain control, to quell the trembling of her limbs and the heaving of her chest. Slowly, her heart calmed, and she felt, again, the chill of the room against her sweat-drenched skin.

She turned to him, to kiss him, it fill herself with his smell and his taste, quietly now, tenderly now. His eyes no longer burned so harshly. His hands, smoothing her hair back from her face, were soft. His lips were gentle.

"Katnip," he said again. His first word since they'd started.

"Gale." She said his name simply, warmly. His eyes flashed with pleasure as the undercurrents of love in her tone.

"I'll get you home, Katnip," he whispered.

Katniss looked up at the curtain over her bed, and fought to keep tears of happiness from sliding down her cheeks. "I know you will. I knew you would."


End file.
